Minimum Wage Hike Overturned Due To Employee Protesting: It’s Good News Friday! Tune in today for good news such as an update on the Trump travel ban, and update on the Trinity Lutheran case, why the minimum wage hike was overturned, and so much more, right here on WallBuilders Live!

Transcription note: As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

Welcome

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture, this is WallBuilders Live! Where we’re talking about today’s hottest topics on policy, faith, and the culture, always looking at it from a Biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective.

We’re having that conversation with David Barton, America’s premiere historian and our founder here at WallBuilders. Also, Tim Barton, national speaker, pastor, and president of WallBuilders. And my name’s Rick Green, I’m a former Texas state rep, national speaker, and author.

You’ve joined us on a Friday. Well, folks, that means it’s Good News Friday. We love these Fridays because it’s an opportunity to share some good news with you from across the nation, around the world, and virtually every Friday we get a chance to do this.

David and Tim collect these great stories that are happening that just aren’t covered in the news. So on a Friday, we do sort of a rapid fire report of these various stories. Some of them are a few weeks old, some might be a couple of months old, some might have been in the last couple of days.

Update On Trump Travel Ban

To kick us off with some good news I believe David’s going to go first, David?

David:

I’m going to start with some Supreme Court decisions. The court has now left town which I wish they’d do that more often.

Rick:

That’s the good news!

David:

It would be so much better if they would. And by the way, Congress could do that if they wanted to because the Congress is the one who sets the terms of the Supreme Court and how long they’re in session.

Congress literally, if they wanted to, under the Constitution can say, “We want the Supreme Court to meet once every 10 years.” It’s that simple. But nobody reads the Constitution anymore.

So let’s go back to what happened. The judges leave town at the end of June, they’ll come back in the first part of October, and start their next term. So as they’re going out of town they issued some pretty interesting decisions.

Let’s just kind of look back at that. I want to start one that’s got political overtures to it. It is they reinstated the key parts of Trump’s executive order on the travel ban saying, “Hey, these six nations that have a high percentage of terrorists in those nations we’re going to do extra screening and extra vetting before they come in.”

Of course, that was struck down twice by two judges out in the wacky Ninth Circuit. And so now when it gets to the Supreme Court they say, “No, we’re reinstating that ban. They’re going to hear the full case next term.” So what you now have is the court has said that the United States does have a right to screen those who are coming in. You don’t have a worldwide constitutional right to go into America anytime you want to if you’re not a citizen. It’s in the best interest the United States to be able to see if those that are coming and are terrorists or not. So that’s a huge decision to be able to exert some logic on why you do certain things with immigration type issues.

Why America Is Joining With Israel

Rick:

Hey David, I didn’t get a chance. I haven’t read it yet, do you know off the top your head if you had a chance to read much of it? Did they address that this is the president’s domain? This is something he should be able to do?

David:

Yes.

Rick:

Good.

David:

That is part of the logic of upholding the Constitution on the power of the president to do so and the wealth of traditions that have been there. But what’s interesting that goes with this, and this, again, shows you the mindset change that you have with this administration.

Because the last administration said, “Christians we don’t want coming in. Persecuted Christians, that’s really bad stuff. Now, a highly Muslim nation, let’s bring all those folks in.” So you get a hundred thousand Muslims out of Somalia and you get two Christians out of the Middle East.

One congressman told me it was two another one told me it was seven . Whatever it was, it was just not much in the way of persecuting Christians. So this administration turns around saying, “No, let’s go the other direction on this.”

As part of that, I got word that the new administration is now collaborating with Israel to get Israel to show them how to do security screening based on profiling. Now, Israel is very successful at what it does. They’re really good at spotting terrorists and taking care of terrorists. They still have the attacks but they have to come from outside the country basically. They rarely come from inside the country. They’ve got to launch missiles out of Lebanon or out of somewhere else.

So joining with Israel to help teach us about how to profile. Tim, profiling has become such a negative word. I’ve got to go back and just read a few questions out of a test that came out several years ago to show why profiling really is logical.

Why Profiling Is Necessary

This was a test based on several terror incidents. It went back the last 20-25 years. I’m just going to pick up 1985, going through. It says, “In 1985 the cruise ship was hijacked and a 70-year-old American passenger was murdered and thrown overboard in his wheelchair by, a. The Smurfs, b. Davy Jones, c. the Little Mermaid, d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40.”

“I don’t know why we would want to profile. I think we ought to be looking at Mother Teresa.” I mean, it’s nuts the way we go at it. We know where the attacks come from, and yet we’re not allowed to look at where the attacks might come.

We said in a previous program that if I’m a cop and I get a call that 7-Eleven or a convenience store has just been robbed and the guy who robbed it was 5 foot 10, weighed 180 pounds, and he is a white guy with a tattoo on his left shoulder, I’m not going to start looking for white guys that are 5 foot 10 because that’s profiling. I’m going to check with some Chinese folks, and I’m going to check with some Native American folks, and I want to make sure I do not discriminate.

Nonsense. If you know where the trouble is coming from that’s who you look for. And that’s why you put out reports on who the troublemakers are. So the fact that the Supreme Court recognized that and the fact the Trump administration is going to say, “Hey, let’s talk to people who are really good about keeping terrorists out.” That’s really good news.

Why Didn’t Trump Use His Full Power Over The Ninth Circuit

Rick:

Hey, David, let me ask you real quick, and then we’ll go to break and come back get your Supreme Court decision. On this one, do you think it was great that the Supreme Court ruled this way and that way everybody won’t say that Trump is just doing it on his own? But should we remind the American people that he could have done this on his own and he could have been Andrew Jackson here and said, “Nice opinion 9th Circuit. You can’t enforce it. I’m going to keep doing what I’ve got to do to protect the American people.”

Do you think he was wise to wait and let the Supreme Court rule? Or would have that been a good chance to step out there and say, “Hey, I’m going to exercise my duty as president and not let the court slap me around tell me what to do.”

David:

He could have stepped out and done that and then it would have been a media furor past what it is now.

Rick:

It would have, yeah.

David:

It’s not that he didn’t have the constitutional right to do that, he did, he had historical precedent to do that. Not only Andrew Jackson but other presidents as well. But you have such a poor education system in America that everybody would have said, “He can’t do that. The Supreme Court makes a law, he has to follow the law.”

No, the Supreme Court gives their opinion. It says that at the top of every decision, the opinion of the Supreme Court. And so tell me when the opinion of five out of nine judges on the Supreme Court is the equivalent of what is written and ratified in the Constitution?

So, he could have, but it would have been a real firestorm. And by the way, talking about firestorms with this.

Trump’s Controversial Tweets

Let me just point out something that’s an interesting observation to me.

Trump keeps tweeting and keeps creating all sorts of furor over what he is tweeting. He tweets this and he tweets that. So then CNN is going apoplectic, “How can the president keep tweeting?” And all these others, MSNBC, and etc.

But while they’re all beating up on him nobody’s talking about what Tom Graves is doing in HHS, or what Rick Perry is doing at energy, or what Scott Prude is doing in EPA, I mean, all these guys are getting all these things done and nobody is noticing.

I kind of think, you know, this is really pretty smart. Keep everybody yelling and screaming at him and they can’t see all the progress that’s happening underneath that they would yell about if they knew it was going on.

So, I think that actually, those tweet things may be fairly interesting. Plus, you know what does CNN have? Twelve viewers or something except for airports? And Trump has 52 million on his twitter follows or whatever it is.

So I really like the way he’s going at stuff but I’m intrigued with- he could have taken this on and made a big issue out of it and used Twitter to educate folks on this. But he didn’t do it and it didn’t become a media furor and now the media’s been really silent about the reinstatement of the ban. But I love the fact he just keeps it stirred up and that none of the media are really covering all the progress we’re making down underneath.

Rick:

Good point. Quick break, we’ll be right back with more good news. Stay with us here on WallBuilders Live!

Moment From America’s History

This is David Barton with another moment from America’s history. Today, there are numerous documented accounts of individual students being disciplined simply for bringing a Bible to school. Fisher Ames would have been appalled at this open hostility toward the Bible. Fisher Ames was the Founding Father who authored the House of Representative’s language for the First Amendment.

In his day, he vehemently objected to any attempt to minimize the Bible in schools. In fact, he declared, “Why should not the Bible regain the place it once held as a school book? Its morals are pure, its examples captivating and noble. The reverence for the sacred book that is thus early impressed last long and probably, if not impressed in infancy, never takes firm hold of the mind.”

Founding Father Fisher Ames, the man most responsible for the wording of the First Amendment, believed that the most important schoolbook was the Bible. For more information on God’s hand in American history contact WallBuilders at 1 800 8 REBUILD.

Update On The Trinity Lutheran Case

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live Good News Friday today. Thanks for joining us. You can get more good news at our website WallBuildersLive.com. David Barton already shared one case with us and has another case for us, then we’ll jump over to Tim to see what he’s got, David?

David:

Well, it’s the Trinity Lutheran case. That was the case that was after the Blaine Amendment. I think it’s 23-26 states have the Blaine Amendment which essentially was an anti-Catholic amendment that was done that said that you can’t use any state funds in religious stuff.

Well, they meant Catholic stuff. It was Protestant leaders trying to say, “We don’t want Catholic schools being paid for. It’s ok to have Christian schools but not Catholic schools.”

So that bigoted amendment had turned around and bit them on the tail because it meant you couldn’t use a single penny to do anything. You can’t have school choice in those states.

You can’t have what the Supreme Court has ruled and be able to have the state pay for textbooks for Christian and public schools. If it’s a math book, it’s not a Christian math book, it’s a math book. So the court had really ruled in favor of being able to treat everyone equally. But the Blaine Amendment kept that from happening.

So in Missouri, you had all these ground up tires, all the shredded rubber, and they would put it on playgrounds to help protect kids fell off of monkey bars or whatever it was.

And because a Lutheran church had a community playground, it was on the church grounds, but the whole community used it. They said, “No, no, with the Blaine Amendment we can’t let you have that shredded rubber to protect kids in the community from falling because if they fall on a church ground they need to go ahead and get hurt.”

How stupid is that?

So it goes to the court and we end up winning at the U.S. Supreme Court by a margin of 7 to 2, “No you cannot discriminate against religious groups with funding.” Now, what’s striking in that is that there was a 7 to 2 decision and Justice Ginsburg and Sotomayor both descended and said, “Oh no, if we’re going to uphold the Constitution we definitely have to make sure that kids in the community if they’re on church grounds go ahead and fall and get hurt.”

It’s that kind of stupid logic that we have to show that we’re neutral between us so we want the church kids to get hurt, which is crazy.

Tim:

Let me interject a question, I understand the context we’re putting in, but did Sotomayor and Ginsburg actually say, “Because of the Constitution?” Or did they point to previous precedent? Because they actually pointed to the Constitution. And then they didn’t even know what it said at that moment.

But certainly, their position would be on the opposite side. But this is where so often you point to previous precedent, which I guess, oftentimes arguing previous precedent they argue, “That’s what the Constitution actually means, is this previous precedent.” But I just can’t imagine there a reference to the Constitution, to begin with much less using that as a basis for their argument.

Justice Gorsuch Taking A Bold Stand

David:

They actually in their decisions say, “This case is about nothing less than the relationship between a religious institution and the civil government, that is between church and state. The court today profoundly changes that relationship by holding for the first time that the Constitution requires the government provide funds-” And they go on how the Constitution does it- and by the way, under the Constitution Congress did that for a long time all the way into the 20th century provided funds for Christian activities. So they don’t even know, of course, they don’t know the Constitution.

You just made the point that they don’t know their history and they don’t know the precedent. But in this decision and all these decisions that come down in the last week of the court, the court kind of holds decisions until the last week and then it leaves town before anybody gets mad.

In that period of time, Justice Gorsuch really came out strong in case, after case, after case, he really exerted himself. He came out strong for the Second Amendment, he came out strong for the First Amendment, and I mean he really put the Supreme Court up as being wimps and defending religious liberty and said they needed to.

Rick:

In fact, remember he made that great distinction and said, “Look, even the majority opinion is a little bit too nuanced because of that difference between, as he pointed out, the freedom of religion is not just to believe something but to act on it, to live it out, that very thing we’ve been talking about on the show for years now saying, “Look, this isn’t just for in your church, or in your prayer closet, you ought to be able to take your beliefs into the workplace and everywhere else.” I thought it was incredible, it made me jump for joy. This may be the best appointment to the Supreme Court we’ve had in my lifetime.

Rick:

Yeah, he says, “The clause in the Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion, not just the right to inward belief.” I mean, he does a great job. So that’s another piece of good news.

Anybody who had questions about Gorsuch since he has now shown himself to be very far to the right of the Chief Justice Roberts. He’s right over there with Clarence Thomas who probably is the most constitutional justice on the court including even Scalia.

So this is great to see Gorsuch over there with Thomas quoting the Constitution and chiding the court for not defending clear constitutional clauses

Rick:

Some of the comments they made were so strong, so good, and then they even re-quoted some of the stuff from Heller and talked about, “The Founders would have never thought the Second Amendment was just to protect your right to carry a gun from your kitchen to your bathroom.” It’s about being able to carry out in public. I’m just thrilled he’s very much like Thomas and very excited about the decisions to come.

Another quick break, sorry Tim, I said we were going to get to some of your good news. We’ll start with Tim when we come back. Stay with us you’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

Hi, this is Tim Barton with WallBuilders and I want to encourage all the pastors out there with a unique opportunity that we’re presenting it WallBuilders. We’re doing a special tour just for pastors that you can come and learn more about the spiritual heritage of our nation. Not just seeing the sights but understanding the significance of what they are and what they represent.

We get to go to the Capitol at night. And we get to see the spiritual heritage of our Founding Fathers, of who we are as a nation, where we came from. We bring in congressman that will tell you about current legislation, about our religious liberties and freedom, and what’s going on in Washington D.C.

If you’re a pastor or if you want to recommend your pastor for this trip, you can go to our website at www.WallBuilders.com. And there’s a link that’s for scheduling. If you click on that link there’s a section for pastor’s briefing. There’s more information about the dates, when it’s going, and how it’s going to happen. If you want to know more about our nation, our religious liberties, our freedom, our spiritual heritage, this is a trip you want to be a part of.

Employees Protesting Minimum Wage Hike

Rick:

Welcome back, thanks for staying with us on this Good News Friday here on WallBuilders Live! We got a lot of great news from David on the first half of the program. Tim, I feel like we just left you out there for a little while.

Tim:

It’s ok, I’m used to being the overlooked victim in the family.

Rick:

Awe, do we have the smallest record player in the world playing my heart bleeds for you or not? No?

Tim:

I think Justin has it qued, so if you can’t find the record player we can still make it work. No, but it’s ok guys-

Rick:

David, do we allow safe spaces for the snowflakes on our program?

David:

No, we just laugh at the whine, and when you get a whine like that it’s great fodder for laughing at whining.

Rick:

Well, Tim, is about as far from being a snowflake as anybody I know. It’s fun to joke about it, but seriously Tim, I know you’ve got a big stack so we’ll see how much you can get to before the end of our program today.

Tim:

This good news is coming out of Maine. This is an interesting thing, so, Maine voted on a referendum that they wanted to raise the minimum wage for all the workers in the state. They broke it down actually specifically for people that had a normal job, normal minimum wage, but also for people that were affected by tips, tipped workers is what they called it. So the people voted that in.

Well, then there was a slew of restaurant employees who made their money off tips largely. And by the way, they received only $3.75 an hour plus tips. And so under this new referendum, it says, “No, if you work at a restaurant, you’re a waiter, or waitress, whatever it is, you need to make $12 an hour because it’s not right that you only make $3.75 plus tips.”

Which, of course, if you’re thinking through this, the $3.75 plus tips they make is more than $12 an hour. Anyway, so, a group of waiters and waitresses began to petition to the main Senate and say, “Guys, you’ve got to reverse this. People were trying to be nice and wanted to help us but we are going to make so much less money.”

David:FAnd by the way, they pointed out they were making less money because people were saying, “Oh, they get paid $12 bucks an hour, now I’ll give much smaller tip.”

Minimum Wage Hike Overturned

Tim:

Yeah, since it was already voted, it hasn’t even taken effect yet, but it was already voted in. So the people of Maine, to that argument said, “Now wait a second, if you’re making $12 an hour I don’t need to leave you a big tip. You’re making way more money.”

And because of it they just lost a significant portion of their income, so they come to the Senate and they begin a petition to senators to please vote and overturn this, don’t let it happen. Then the Senate votes to overturn the minimum wage hike at the request of the people who are going to receive that minimum wage hike because it actually was not beneficial for them.

So it’s one of these fun ironies looking at economics, looking at the free market, and saying, “Oh, wait a second, the free market actually was beneficial in this moment. People made more money because of their skill, because their labor, because of being a fun hostess, waitress, waiter, or whatever it was they were doing.”

But this is something that the main senate has now worked to take the other direction just because of the impact it’s already had on those employees.

David:

By the way, other states and cities have already shown the same thing that increasing the minimum wage actually decrease the overall wages and increased unemployment. It did not get more people in it get more people out.

Rick:

It hurts the very people they’re trying to help.

David:

Many liberal ideas don’t work well because they don’t test them before they try them and they throw out things that have worked for generations and say, “Well, we want something different.” And that’s the case here.

Rick:

Yeah, no doubt about it! Another quick break, we’ll be back with Tim Barton and some more good news when we return on WallBuilders Live!

Avalon Project

Tim:

Hey, guys, this is Tim Barton with WallBuilders. I know you hear my dad and Rick talk a lot about our Founding Fathers about the original intent of our nation, a constitutional heritage that we have. And really we’ve seen how far we slipped away from that. And I know a lot of us as we hear my dad and Rick talk think, “I wish there was a place that I could go where I could see these documents and I could read and learn about the Founding Fathers firsthand. See the things they did.”

I want to give you some websites today that can help you accomplish that very thing. If you get online you can go to places like Library of Congress and you can look under their century of lawmaking or historical documents. You can go to the Avalon Project, to the Founders Constitution, Google Books, or even the internet archives.

Or you can just go to WallBuilders.com. We have a section for our WallBuilders Library. And under that section, we have different subgroups for historical documents, historical writings, even a place where you can get helpful links to find out more information about other websites. Where you can do research for yourself and find the truth for yourself. Friends, this is the time that we need to know who we are and where we came from. WallBuilders.com is a great place to go.

A Miracle Caught On Tape

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live, the final segment of good news. We’ll see how much we can get, Tim, whatcha got, bro?

Tim:

This guy is a video that’s gone viral over the last week, I don’t know if you guys have seen it on social media, there is a girl in a wheelchair and there’s a nurse who is screaming, “Thank you, Lord! Thank You, Lord!” Because this girl stands up from the wheelchair.

And so we got a little background in the story, it actually happened a year or two ago, but again, it’s gone viral and people are seeing it for the first time.

So it’s kind of a big deal story but there was a girl originally from Denton, Texas, she was 17 years old, she and her dad were playing at the house, she lands on her back and lose feeling in her legs.

They take her to the doctor, it looks like she’s paralyzed but they don’t know why they’re not finding any kind of solution. So in the midst of it they are running all these tests and they start doing rehab.

Somewhere along the point in rehab, she begins to have feeling, sensation in her legs again. And by the way, I should point out she’s a very strong Christian the whole time. She said that she’s relying on her faith in God. “The whole time I had this attitude I would leave it in his hands.” Meaning whether she could walk or not ever again and be prepared for what he decided.

The reality that she is content with what God decides is pretty remarkable for the 17-year-old girl. But, she starts to feel her legs again and as this happens she’s able to finally stand up.

Not walking yet, but she was able to stand up. Her nurse, who had been working with her through the whole process, was also a believer. And so this young girl Bailey said that she felt really connected the nurse because she’s a believer and I’m a believer and we talk about faith in God quite often.

She said, “I wanted to do something to encourage this nurse that encouraged me so much in my life.” Well, the article says the nurse was stuck on the elevator for an hour that morning. So I don’t know exactly what that means like, stuck, with a patient, I don’t know. But either way, it depicts that this nurse was not having a great morning. And so the nurse got word that this girl Bailey wants to see her.

So the nurse is walking down the hall and that’s when it shows Bailey kind of wheel up and stop. And then Bailey stands up and this nurse is just ecstatic and tears in her eyes and oh my goodness. “You can move! You have feeling in your legs!” Really this fun story that, again, it’s gone viral over this last week all over social media people have seen this, it’s getting millions of views. But just kind of a neat background behind this story where that people of faith and God is doing something.

President Trump Wants To Help Baby Charlie Gard

And speaking also that medical field and again, where people have prayed for something to happen. I don’t know if you guys saw just recently the situation with Charlie, I guess his last name is Gard, with his young baby over in London.

But what’s significant about it is that President Trump tweeted about it about how he wants to do wherever he can to help.

David:

By the way, let’s tell the story real quick. Charlie Gard has a really bad medical problem and the European court said that the hospital can go ahead and kill him.

Tim:

Yeah, so the hospital said that this is a fatal deal for the baby, the baby is not going to survive, and they don’t have the medical technology they need to do whatever it is they need to do to help this baby survive, even though that technology does exist. They didn’t have there in the U.K. “So what are we going to do?” And the hospital says, “Well, let’s just stop treatments, pull the plug, wasting our time, wasting our money.”

So the parents start what’s essentially this Go Fund Me account where they raise a million dollars to be able to bring the baby over to America to be able to try to get the treatment to save the baby’s life, save little Charlie’s life-

David:

And by the way, the Vatican said, “Bring him to us, we’ll take care of him.” There were hospitals across the world that said, “Send him to us, we’ll take care of him.”

Tim:

And the hospital said, “We will not release this baby, we’re not going to help, we’re not going to do something.” Well, his case went to the U.K. court and the court said, “Hey, it’s the hospital’s main decision, we support their decision.” And really, this was something that I’d seen about it on a couple of faith websites where people were saying, “Hey, we need to pray for this.” And it was starting to become a viral deal.

But none of the U.S. News was reporting on it. Even though it was catching traction, it was becoming viral, obviously a significant story. Well, President Trump tweets about it and tweets say, “We want to help if we can do something when we’re here.”

And when he tweets, we’ll guess what, the next day all of a sudden now the news agencies in America go, “Oh, hey, there’s a story, if you haven’t heard.” And so they really followed the momentum that president gave them.

David:

Again, his tweets have more impact than the news media.

Tim:

It’s remarkable that he brought attention to it, brought traction to it, and now you even have liberal Hollywood elites that are coming out saying, “Hey, we support Charlie.”

David:

Cher came out she came out saying, “Yeah, we want to service life.”

Tim:

“We want to yeah, we want to help to save precious Charlie Gard. Send him to us.” But this is just kind of a fun situation where certainly a lot of people have been praying for Charlie and praying that he would be released from the hospital and get to America. That doctors can help and do- and people are praying for healings, all that kind of stuff. But it is interesting to see God use President Trump in this situation to bring attention to it. Hopefully, we will see good results come because of it.

Thanks For Listening

Rick:

More good news available at our website. Be sure to check it out there at WallBuildersLive.com. You can go to the archives section to catch some of those earlier Friday programs. Thanks for tuning in, you’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live!

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One Comment

I’m an American currently living in London, so I’ve been following the Charlie Gard story. When I heard the High Court wouldn’t let Charlie go to America for experimental treatment because “it might not work” and “it would cause unnecessary suffering”, I was outraged. I asked, “Who are you to play God?!” I’m pretty sure his parents understand the indications of “experiment.” If the court is worried about spending government money or breaking the social healthcare system, the public funding that his parents have sought should eradicate those issues. It makes me glad to be an American. I’m encouraged by the worldwide support for Charlie.

WALLBUILDERS LIVE! with David Barton, Tim Barton and Rick Green is a daily journey into the past to capture the ideas of the Founding Fathers of America and then apply them to the major issues of today. Featured guests will include Congressmen, Senators, and other elected officials, as well as experts, activists, authors, and commentators on a variety of issues facing America.